The Cazin rebellion () was an armed anti-state rebellion of peasants that occurred in May 1950 in the towns of Cazin and Velika Kladuša in the Bosanska Krajina region, as well as Slunj in Croatia, at that time part of Communist Yugoslavia. The peasants revolted against the forced collectivization and collective farms set up by the Yugoslav government following a drought in 1949, after which they had been punished due to their inability to meet the quotas. The ringleaders were persecuted and some killed, including many innocent civilians.
Etymology
The rebellion is variously called Cazin rebellion, Cazin uprising, Cazin revolt, and 1950 peasants' revolt.
Background
Peasants made up three-quarters of Yugoslavia's population. The countryside had contributed the majority of the recruits to Yugoslav Partisans, Ustaše and Chetniks alike during World War II. They suffered much more than their counterparts in the cities. When the war ended and communist Yugoslavia was established, the new communist leadership forced peasants to produce enough food to satisfy the needs of the entire country and exports. This rule applied throughout the communist Balkans, and politicians were quick to curb independent political activity in the countryside.
Yugoslavia began collectivization and forcing the peasants to start collective farms as early as 1947, in an effort to appease its communist ally the Soviet Union, when Joseph Stalin accused Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito of deviating from Socialism in the direction of capitalism. Then, in June 1948, Yugoslavia was expelled from the Cominform. To disprove the claim of revisionism, the leadership in Belgrade decided instead to speed up collectivization, demonstrating that it was not Yugoslavia but the Soviet Union and its allies that had strayed from the path of Stalinism.
Agricultural production was down by more than half over pre-war figures. In the Bosnian city of Cazin, for example, there was far less livestock, and herds were exhausted, undernourished, ill. Despite its significant potential, Yugoslavia was unable to feed itself in the immediate postwar period. The state had to intervene to provide the necessary investment and incentives to stimulate production. It forced peasants to hand over their holdings to unwieldy agricultural conglomerates, the collective farms. Those who refused to join were subject to a harsh regime of requisition.
The number of collective farms rose in 1949 from 1,318 to almost 7,000. The Party increased the requisitions to unrealistic levels, often demanding more from peasants than they could produce in a year. Peasants unable to fulfill their quotas risked losing everything (the so-called 'total confiscation' regime). Failure could also result in a spell at a work camp, where they would join political prisoners and students on construction or mining projects. Some hoarded their produce and slaughtered their livestock rather than hand it over to inspectors. In the countryside, some communities began to go hungry. Many small protests occurred, but by 1950, others were considering more radical forms of resistance.
Revolt
To further complicate matters, a drought in 1949 had led to a sharp drop in production and by January 1950, the Cazin district inspectors had collected 800,000 kilos less than their annual quota. The figures were worse for cattle and swine. In response, the communists mounted a renewed confiscation to drive. This was too much for Milan Božić, a Serb from the village Crnaja, and his friend, Mile Devrnja, a Serb who lived over the Korana river in the Slunj district of Croatia. They met secretly at Božić's home in mid-March to lay down groundwork for an armed rebellion against the Yugoslav state. For this to have any prospect of success in Cazin, the Serbs would have to persuade the Bosniak peasantry to join in. Over the next six weeks, the peasant army attracted hundreds of recruits from their friends and extended families in both Cazin and the neighboring Croat districts. Some of the leaders were so-called prvoborci (founding fighters or, more literally, first fighters) of the Partisans who recognized the need to instill discipline and organization.
Božić, a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, set out from his hamlet in northwestern Bosnia to visit his old comrade, Ale Čović, a Bosniak who lived in the Liskovac village 5 kilometers away. The two had met during World War II, fighting in the same Yugoslav Partisan unit around Bihać. Both men were peasant farmers. Six years after Tito had taken power in Yugoslavia, Božić called on his old comrade, Čović, to persuade him to take up arms once more.